K8BL Earns Satellite WAS

PublishedJuly 11, 2016

On July 7, the ARRL News carried the story about NCC member Bob Liddy earning his WAS award via satellite. The article, sourced from the AMSAT News Service, appears below. Congratulations on an incredibly difficult achievement, Bob.

It took Bob Liddy, K8BL, of Mentor, Ohio, nearly 4 decades to achieve Worked All States via satellite and earn WAS Satellite Award #341, although he wasn’t really gunning for the award for all that time. His contacts spanned 38 years, and he submitted QSL cards to claim the award. His oldest satellite QSL card was from W7LSV in Oregon, for an Oscar 8 Mode A CW contact in 1978.

Liddy did not realize until he started going through his QSL cards to submit for awards at Dayton Hamvention® that he might have completed WAS on satellite. An AMSAT member since 1979, Liddy said he was “not in the hunt very seriously,” but he determined that had, indeed, worked all 50 states and was only lacking a card from Vermont.

“Happily, it was Nick, KB1RVT, who I knew was always good for a confirmation, which he quickly returned, confirming our contact via SO-50 FM on January 4, 2016,” he said. — Thanks to AMSAT News Service